


Slouching Towards Bethlehem

by speakpirate



Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: Dark, Ezria is Not a Love Story, F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 17:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11628387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakpirate/pseuds/speakpirate
Summary: Aria leaves with Ezra after the Liars catch her in the woods in 7x18.Ezra and Aria are gone.So gone, it’s like they were never here.“She ran,” Spencer says, as if she’s trying to force herself to believe it.A week goes by, then another.No postcards arrive. No wedding announcements.No texts.Nothing from Aria. Nothing from Ezra.Nothing from A."It was him," Spencer declares."Ezra was A."





	1. Tender is the Night

Emily walks up the steps to Ezra’s apartment slowly.

_She’s climbing the stairs of Alison’s house with a fireplace poker in hand. There’s a noise from the nursery. She flings open the door and sees the white crib covered in blood, the rocking chair overturned, the pillows ripped up, torn beyond repair. Pieces of the smashed mobile cover the floor. Half of a ballerina lamp crunches under her foot. Someone did this. Emily chokes back a sob as she looks around at the wreckage._

She takes a deep breath. Anger is a luxury. The police are circling. They have to be strong together. Even if it’s been less than 48 hours since Aria was willing to sell them all out. Emily’s stomach churns at the memory.

_Aria’s face is white and pleading._

_“I can explain!”_

_“Aria, we literally caught you black-hoodied!”_

They’ve all made mistakes. She signed Alison into Welby, watched her walk down the hall into a funhouse of horrors. She swallows hard, steels herself to walk up the last few steps and hear Aria out.

_”Guys, I didn’t know what to do.”_

_“You could have talked to us, okay? We’re friends, since forever. That’s what we do!”_

They are friends, Emily tells herself as she knocks. 

Best friends. 

They forgive each other. It’s what they do.

The door isn’t locked. It swings open.

A ripple of blind fear runs down her spine, a reflex. Fear is a habit. The swoop in her stomach. The prickle on the back of her neck, quick and primal. She’ll spend years trying to recreate the circumstances of this moment, trying to crack the code of what, exactly, made her afraid.

The apartment is empty. Her heels echo strangely on the hardwood.

No lumpy couch. No antique typewriter.

The walls stare blankly back at her.

No books stacked haphazardly on the shelves. No desk stuffed with papers.

The closet is dark and bare. 

Emily feels the room start to spin.

Ezra and Aria are gone.

So gone, it’s like they were never here.

\-----------------------

“She ran,” Spencer says. Her voice is flat, but the words sound like she’s having to work to force them out of her mouth.

“We pushed her away,” Emily worries. She called the meeting out of instinct. 

Get everyone together. Sit in a circle with concerned faces. 

It’s what they do.

“Bullshit,” Hanna declares. “She was working for A.D. We caught her. She probably tortured us all in exchange for a free pass out of town! And now we’re stuck here with Tanner breathing down our necks and she gets to ride off into the sunset with Ezra!”

“Are we sure?” Emily asks. “What if she figured out who it was? What if she told Ezra and then A.D. grabbed them both?”

“No,” Alison says, shifting uncomfortably. “They called Ella from the airport. To tell her they were eloping. She seemed surprised we didn’t know.”

“This is so weird,” Emily says, wrapping her arms around her chest. “It feels like we’re talking about her behind her back.”

“She ran,” Spencer repeats, as if she’s trying to force herself to believe it.

\--------------------------------

Emily and Alison sweep up the debris in the nursery. They repaint it a pale green. Pam comes over and helps put cheerful animal decals on the walls. A bear in a marching band uniform. A smiling giraffe.

Hanna designs three new dresses. Short and trendy, with elegant slash marks ripped from shoulder to stomach. Alison raises an eyebrow, says they look like something is trying to claw it’s way out.

Spencer holes up in the barn. She stops changing her clothes. Her hair looks matted and unkempt. There are dark circles under her eyes and a growing pile of liquor bottles in the trash.

A week goes by, then another.

No postcards arrive. No wedding announcements. No facebook posts. 

No texts.

Nothing from Aria.

Nothing from Ezra.

Nothing from A.

\-----------------------------------

They’re standing on the sidewalk outside the Brew, looking at the CLOSED sign hanging on the door. It’s been there for the past four days. Today, it’s joined by a FOR LEASE banner in the window.

Spencer called the number. It went straight to voicemail. 

“Mona has something to show us,” Hanna announces. “And nobody’s allowed to get mad, okay?”

She glares at Caleb, who’s face is already flushed and angry. He shoves his hands in his pockets and doesn’t meet her eyes.

They follow Mona, who’s moving nervously, wringing her hands in a way that reminds Emily of the old days when she was all braids and braces and a relentless thirst to fit in.

The game is sitting on a table in the middle of Mona’s apartment. 

“I stole it,” Mona admits. “When I saw Tanner pull up outside Alison’s. I wanted to help.”

Spencer snorts in disbelief. Caleb coughs.

“Do you need a drink of water?” Hanna asks, irritably. 

“No,” Caleb says, bitingly. “I don’t think it’ll help me swallow this story.”

“It’s not a story,” Mona says, holding her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I thought I could beat it. I wanted to win.”

“Did you?” Alison asks. 

“No,” Mona sighs. “That’s what I wanted to show you. It’s dead.”

“Dead?” Emily gulps.

“It used to cycle on and off,” Mona explains. “But then all of a sudden, it powered down. It hasn’t made a peep in weeks.”

They stare at the board. 

“Careful,” Alison cautions as Spencer crouches down next to it. 

No knives shoot out. No poison gas. 

It’s just a shell. A game. A puzzle with the last piece missing.

“Did you take Aria off the board?” Alison asks.

Emily winces as she watches all the muscles of Spencer’s face tighten. The sound of Aria’s name is like a push on a bruise.

“No,” Mona says. “She disappeared. The day the game went dark.”

\------------------------------------------

“Do you think it’s over?” Emily asks one night. 

They’re in bed, her arms wrapped around Alison in the dark.

“I’m not sure it’s ever going to be over.” 

“Do you think she’ll come back?”

The silence stretches out so long, she wonders if Ali is asleep.

“No.”

\----------------------------------------------

They still have meetings. It feels too weird not to. 

Hanna starts bringing Mona. 

Caleb refuses to come as long as she’s there. 

Hanna stops inviting him. Problem solved.

There isn’t much to talk about.

The Archer Dunhill case goes away. Turns out Tanner was lying about the bloody glass in Spencer’s shower, trying to trick one of them into a confession. 

Mona plants a bloody shovel at the Kahn cabin. Calls in an anonymous tip.

“The District Attorney is a simple man,” she promises.

She’s right.

That’s all it takes. 

Case closed.

\------------------------------------------------

Emily and Alison take every threat free minute as a gift, a moment they can spend making lists of baby names, talking through their birth plan. 

They make out in the onesie aisle at Target, get so heated they knock over an end cap of diapers.

Alison is startled by the sound of her own laughter. 

\-------------------------------------------------

Hanna feels the days building up like the bricks in one of those Poe stories Mona used to read to her. 

Like she’s watching as her life gets walled off. Split into before and after. 

She spends hours with her sketch book, cutting fabric and pinning samples on her dress forms. 

Caleb’s sighs are like white noise as she works.

\---------------------------------------------------

Spencer still investigates. She doesn’t know what else to do.

She disables the alarm and ransacks what’s left of the Brew. She tears into bags of coffee beans, pours boxes of muffin mix out onto the floor. She rifles through the pages of every book and magazine on the shelf, tossing them into a pile in the middle of the room.

She wants to find a clue. A note. An itinerary. An answer to fill this gaping hole inside her chest.

She claws at the floorboards with her bare hands. Tears them up until her fingers are raw and bleeding.

She wraps them in a zebra print scarf she found under the counter. Drinks from a flask of tequila someone left under the sink. 

Ezra’s office is cleaned out. Wiped down. There’s a single book propping up a leg of his uneven desk. She flips through the pages, and a picture falls out.

The five of them in the grass. 

The summer before Alison went missing. 

Aria’s head is leaning on Spencer’s shoulder.

The ghost of their teenage giggling tickles Spencer’s ear.

The tears run down her face, splashing the cover.

_Tender is the Night._

\--------------------------------------------

The weeks stitch themselves into a month. 

Mona hacks into the airport security system, finds the footage of Ezra and Aria boarding a plane for Marseille. They’re laughing and holding hands as they talk to the woman at the ticket counter. 

The last moment before they disappear into the boarding tunnel, Aria turns back.

She looks directly at the camera.

Then she turns and follows Ezra. 

\---------------------------------------------

Mona’s building burns down.

The game had a self destruct mechanism built in.

Hanna offers to let her move into the loft.

Caleb takes off for Toby’s cabin.

By the time he gets back, Mona has a new place. A furnished condo by the river.

Hanna checks into the Radley.

\----------------------------------------------

Spencer tosses a ripped envelope onto Alison’s coffee table. It has rubber bumpers attached now to blunt the corners.

“I found something.”

Hanna and Mona look up from whatever fashion magazine they’re poring over. Surfacing from the pages of high end sunglasses and hemline trends.

Emily and Alison freeze mid-snuggle on the couch, Em’s lips nuzzling against Ali’s ear.

They don’t like discussing the kinds of things these meetings used to be about.

The lull feels precarious. 

They don’t want to jinx it.

Tough, Spencer thinks.

Mona is the first to lean forward.

“A bill,” she says, examining it closely.

“An electric bill,” Hanna specifies, reading over her shoulder. “What are we solving? The Case of Who Left the Hair Dryer Plugged In?”

“Is that Ezra’s?” Emily asks, catching sight of the address label. “Spencer, how did you even get this?”

“They didn’t leave a forwarding address. Just put a stop on the mail. Sometimes things...slip through the cracks.” 

“Did you break into the post office?” Alison asks, sounding almost impressed.

“No,” Spencer pauses. “It doesn’t matter how I got it. What matters is what’s in it.”

“Which is what?” Hanna asks, a bite in her voice.

“Way too much power,” Mona mutters. “Even if the account were for the whole building, there’s no way The Brew was coming close to hitting this level.” 

She meets Spencer’s gaze evenly. “This is something else.”

“Electronics,” Spencer says. “Cameras. Computers. Heavy duty. Industrial grade cables and wiring. Banks of monitors.”

“Eyes and ears,” Mona nods. “Surveillance equipment.”

“A room full. Maybe more,” Spencer announces.

“Not a room,” Mona concludes. “A lair.”

“What are you saying?” Emily asks.

“It was him,” Spencer declares. “It was him all along!”

The others stare at her in silence.

“Ezra was A.”


	2. The Pile of Bones

“Do you think it was him?” Toby asks, his voice drifting up from undercarriage of his truck.

“Maybe,” Caleb says, handing him a wrench.

There’s a clanking sound and a groan of metal. 

Bolts tightening. 

They’ve been working on the truck for the past month.

The broken axle is replaced. New headlights installed. The crack in the radiator patched up. 

It feels like progress. 

\---------------------------------------

Caleb buys flowers and a tub of double fudge chocolate chip ice cream on his way home.

Hanna’s having dinner at the loft tonight.

\-----------------------------------------

“Do you think it was him?” Caleb asks, twirling pasta on his fork.

“I don’t think about it,” Hanna tells him. 

He leans back in his chair, absorbing the lie.

\-------------------------------------------

Toby’s hands shake as they fit the new windshield in place. 

He goes to pick up lunch while Caleb extracts the old bench seat.

Pulls it out like a bad tooth. Looks at the bloodstains, a dark brown crust. 

He feels a lump in his throat as he thinks about Yvonne. 

How hard she used to laugh at Toby’s dumb jokes. 

How she was actually really good at fishing. 

His wedding ring glints in the sunlight.

All the things that can’t be fixed.

\----------------------------------------------

“It was him,” Spencer says, as she pulls the label slowly off her beer.

She tosses it into the fire. 

Watches it blaze and turn to ash.

“We knew he had cameras all over town. We knew Charlotte was working for him.”

Caleb and Toby drink in silence.

“It was him,” Spencer says again. 

She cornered Ella Montgomery after school last week, tried to convince her.

Grabbed her arm so tight she left bruises.

“He had all that money. He never thought the rules applied to him.”

She’s not talking to them.

“It was him all along.”

She’s talking to the darkness. To the space beside her. 

The phantom of Aria.

“It was him.”

She’s talking to herself.

\--------------------------------------------------

Caleb yanks the old fan belt free, tosses it on the ground.

“Hanna came over again.”

Toby looks at him, expectantly. “And?”

Caleb sighs.

“Another fight?”

Caleb nods.

They thread the rubber of the new belt through the engine.

“It’s a rough patch,” Toby says, bracingly. “You’ll get through it.”

Caleb leans back, wipes the lie on the rag in his pocket.

\------------------------------------------------------

The snores coming from Toby’s lawn chair are the only sound in the world.

“It was him.”

Except for Spencer’s voice.

“She wanted to explain. She said she could explain.”

Empty bottles are scattered all over the ground.

They ran out of beer.

Caleb tries to focus his eyes to see what Spencer’s drinking.

“It was him.”

Whiskey.

“He was A! And he’s still out there!”

She tracked down Mike Montgomery last week. 

Showed up at his dorm room in Ohio to interrogate him.

Caleb makes a half hearted swipe for the bottle.

He misses.

His hand lands on Spencer’s arm.

“He’s got Aria,” she says, in the smallest voice he’s ever heard.

And then suddenly she’s sobbing.

Weeping.

So hard her whole body is shaking.

He wraps her in a clumsy hug.

“It was him,” she says, trembling.

“I know.”

She takes a deep rattling breath.

Runs a hand down his cheek, the scratchy stubble of his beard.

Her fingers graze the edge of his mouth.

She kisses him hungrily.

He closes his eyes.

Kisses her back.

\------------------------------------------------

They call it the pile of bones.

The twisted metal of the old bumper. The dented side panels.

The crushed passenger door.

He spends the next day taking a sledgehammer to all of it.

His head feels like it might split apart.

The noise makes it hurt worse.

Toby shakes his head, doesn’t ask any questions.

\-------------------------------------------------- 

“Why doesn’t he just buy a new truck?” Hanna asks, her mouth full of pizza.

Caleb’s throat feels raw. 

“He doesn’t want a new one.”

He kisses her.

She closes her eyes.

Kisses him back.

\---------------------------------------------------

“See?” he says, panting a little as he works his mouth down her torso. 

“We’re still good together.”

She yanks his hair, forces him to look her in the eyes.

“This part was never the problem.”

\------------------------------------------------

They spend a morning at the salvage yard.

It’s dirty work.

Digging through the scrap metal.

They’re trying to find a front bumper. 

“Last piece,” Caleb says, using a crowbar to pry one free.

“I’m leaving,” Toby replies. “When we finish.”

Caleb wipes a hand across his sweaty forehead.

Picks up one end of the bumper. 

It’s heavy. 

They carry it together.

One last time.

\--------------------------------------------------------

Spencer throws him a going away party at the barn.

Everyone is coming, even Emily and Alison. 

Caleb hasn’t seen either of them lately.

They’re nesting. Wrapped up in the magical world of babyland.

They seem happy. 

“Maybe we should give it a try,” Caleb tells Hanna.

She laughs like it’s a joke, even though she knows it’s not.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

He dresses up a little. 

A new pair of jeans. A black dress shirt.

One that Hanna picked out for him.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

Everyone’s glad Spencer seems a little better.

She’s drinking, but her hands are steady.

Her eyes are clear.

She’s maybe reached a better place.

Miles away from the night she left a series of threatening voicemails for Byron.

She wanted him to file a missing persons report.

He took out a restraining order instead.

\---------------------------------------------------------

Toby is the first to leave. 

He hugs everyone.

Gives Emily and Alison a new crib.

One he made by hand.

Emily cries.

Spencer doesn’t.

Not even when Toby takes her outside.

Asks her to come with him.

She says no.

He tries to look disappointed.

Caleb smacks the bed of the truck.

Sees Toby's face in the mirror as he drives off .

He’s relieved.

\------------------------------------------------------

“Knock it off,” Hanna tells him, when she catches him glaring at Mona.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to.”

\------------------------------------------------------

Emily and Alison leave next.

Hanna pulls them into an impromptu group hug.

“I love you,” Hanna tells them.

It’s not the kind of I love you some girls toss around like loose change.

She means it.

She’s been saying it to everyone tonight.

Everyone but him.

\-------------------------------------------------------

Mona ghosts.

She leaves to help Emily carry the crib across the yard.

Doesn’t come back.

Spencer shrugs.

“She didn’t want to say goodbye.”

\-----------------------------------------------------

He’s not sure how it starts.

His fingers running through Hanna’s hair.

Spencer’s hand on his thigh.

The girls exchange a long look.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe.

Hanna unbuckles his belt.

Spencer unzips his jeans.

\-------------------------------------------------------

The night exists in flashes.

A haze of lust and drunken heat.

Spencer’s naked back.

Hanna’s nipples scraping his cheek.

Spencer clenching around him.

Hanna coming hard against his mouth.

The taste of Spencer on Hanna’s tongue.

\--------------------------------------------------------

It feels important.

Like they can fuck the sadness out of each other.

 _This._ Caleb thinks, as he falls back against the mattress.

_This is the answer._

\----------------------------------------------------------

The mattress is soaked.

His muscles feel loose and rubbery.

Their bodies are warm on either side of him.

He’s sliding into unconsciousness when he hears Hanna’s voice.

“I love you.”

He pretends she was talking to him.

\------------------------------------------------------------------

He wakes up to the sun streaming in through the windows.

_Spencer never sleeps this late._

His skin is sticky. His head weighs at least fifty pounds.

_Hanna should be snoring._

There’s a glass of water on the bedside table.

He reaches for it.

_The bed is cold._

There’s a folded piece of paper under the pillow.

It’s blank.

\--------------------------------------------------------------

He understands.

The party wasn’t for Toby.

It was for them.

He sees that now.

For him, too.

He gets on the next plane for California.


	3. Ambiguous Loss

The phone rings and wakes the baby. Again.

Granted, their nights are amorphous, start whenever Grace agrees to go down for the evening.

But still. 

Alison picks up.

Emily heads for the nursery.

Sits in the rocker and tries to soothe her daughter.

Tries to remember the last time Spencer checked in.

Grace was in her bumblebee pjs.

She outgrew those at least a month ago.

That was when Spencer thought she caught sight of Aria and Ezra in a box at the Zurich Opera House.

She knocked over three of the woodwinds, disrupted the third act of _Die Fledermaus_.

It wasn’t them.

It never is.

It wasn’t Ezra that she chased through the Uffizi Gallery.

It wasn’t Aria who she spotted on the Staalmeestersbrug. 

Emily rubs soothing circles on Grace’s back.

Hums a lullaby.

Maybe it will calm them both.

\----------------------------------------------------

It’s like living in a haunted house.

They rattle around together.

Try not to imagine Hanna on the couch, bouncing the baby on her knee.

To not picture a clear eyed Spencer trying to teach her French before she even understands English.

To not see the outline of Aria wrinkling her nose at the jar of pureed sweet potato and chicken baby food.

Emily does her best to tamp down on those thoughts. 

Alison can still basically read her mind. 

And they’re happy together.

They are.

They’re a family.

\-------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes she dreams.

She’s running through a thick fog. 

A sharp pang of fear rips through her.

She can’t remember.

If she’s chasing someone or being chased.

\-------------------------------------------------------

 

Emily bolts awake.

Alison’s phone is vibrating underneath her pillow.

She waits in the dark. 

Hears Ali’s groggy voice.

“Hey Spence.”

Grace is fussy lately.

Teething.

She cried herself to sleep less than an hour ago.

“Where are you?”

The house is quiet.

She can hear the rapid patter of Spencer’s voice.

Not the words.

“Are you okay?”

Alison always asks. 

Okay is an amorphous space these days.

A moving target.

That’s not what Ali means, anyway.

She means sober.

Or as close to it as Spencer gets these days.

“Of course,” Alison says, switching the phone to her other ear.

“Dick Diver. Rosemary Hoyt. Tommy Barban. Elsie Speers. Devereux Warren.”

Book characters.

“Nicole Diver, but I don’t think she’d use that one.”

Aliases.

“Sayre. Are you eating?”

Emily puts her head on Ali’s shoulder. 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------

Count your blessings.

Her mom’s favorite piece of advice.

Emily tries.

Grace’s first tottering steps.

“Gah!” she says, triumphantly. 

Like she’s already proud of herself.

Alison opening the fridge to put the butter away, turning to kiss her as Emily reaches for the milk.

Ali carrying the laundry hamper downstairs, pausing to brush her lips against Emily’s neck as she stands at the sink doing dishes.

The butter. The milk. The laundry. The sponge and the dish soap and the greasy skillet.

The way all these things belong to both of them.

To their life.

The one they have together.

Mona, who has a knack for dropping by on nights they’re both too exhausted to cook.

She appears out of nowhere. 

Bearing Thai take out and a mashed banana for Grace.

Sometimes bearing news of Hanna.

The new line that’s all the rage in Paris.

The Mai Tai she threw on Kanye when he got handsy at Cannes. 

And here Mona is. Still in Rosewood.

Sitting on the floor and singing the alphabet to Grace.

\------------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes she knows it’s a nightmare.

A car careening out of control.

A swimming pool full of dolls and broken masks.

The roof starts to leak. 

It collapses. 

Buries them alive in their sleep. 

She’s wiping down tables at The Brew.

Ezra asks if she wants the last piece of pie.

The shape of his eyes.

 _No._

Aria comes in and kisses him.

She wraps her legs around his waist.

He lifts her on top of the pastry case.

“You can go now.”

He smiles at Emily.

His teeth are fangs.

She’s frozen in place.

Blood pours from Aria’s neck.

She can’t move. She can’t scream.

There’s blood everywhere.

All she can do is watch.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Grace is wearing her favorite yellow dress, a pile of wrapping paper strewn around her on the floor, when the special courier arrives.

Hanna has reached a level of celebrity somewhere above regular mail. One full of break out success, but also a growing reputation as the fashion world’s latest party girl. There’s a viral video of her dancing topless on a bar in Pamplona. Grainy photos in US Weekly that claim to show her doing lines off the rock hard abs of a male model. 

Grace doesn’t care about any of that, of course. She cares about the enormous plush unicorn who has arrived just in time to celebrate her birthday. She throws her arms around its neck, then climbs on its back, scooting around the living room and shrieking with laughter.

“It’s from your Aunt Hanna,” Emily tells her.

“Nana?”

“Not Grandma, Sweetie,” Alison explains. “Hanna.”

Mona shows her a picture from the latest issue of People Magazine.

Grace sits astride the unicorn, waving. The queen of all she surveys, the small ruler of her tiny two year old realm. 

They light the candles on the beautiful chocolate cake that Pam made.

Everyone sings..

“Make a wish,” Ali says, crouching down on the other side of the highchair.

Emily closes her eyes and helps Grace blow out the candles.

_Please let it last. Let him stay gone forever. ___

__\-------------------------------------------------------_ _

__It’s like working in a haunted house._ _

__Not dressing up in scary make up or wielding a chainsaw, exactly._ _

__It’s more shuffling like a zombie through the halls of the school._ _

__Seeing a new group of girls clustered around their old lunch table._ _

__Watching a sophomore flirt with the lacrosse coach in front of Aria’s old locker._ _

__It’s better when they have papers to grade, races to time._ _

__Appointments with the pediatrician to schedule._ _

__Emily thinks she’d go crazy if they didn’t have Grace._ _

__She’s the shape of their future. A living, breathing reminder that it exists._ _

__They just have to keep walking forward, eyes on the prize._ _

__Someday they’ll get there._ _

__\--------------------------------------------------------_ _

__Sometimes she wakes up sobbing in Alison’s arms._ _

__She’s sitting on the bed in Hanna’s room._ _

__Hanna is trying on shoes, frowning at a pair of strappy sandals._ _

__Spencer looks up from the book she’s reading._ _

__“Your ankles look fine.”_ _

__“Not in these stupid things,” Hanna grumps. “Look, my right one is all bulgey.”_ _

__“They’re identical,” Aria assures her, glancing over._ _

__She’s sitting behind Spencer, braiding her hair._ _

__“Also, that’s your left,” Spencer points out._ _

__“We shouldn’t have eaten all those cheese curls last night,” Hanna declares, flopping down on the bed next to Emily._ _

__“I’m in training,” Emily tells her. “I had one cheese curl. Because you made me.”_ _

__“I didn’t want to eat the whole bag myself!”_ _

__The siren starts to blare._ _

__“I hate that fucking thing,” Hanna says._ _

__Spencer’s shirt has a bloody hand print over her heart._ _

__She hands Aria a hairbrush with a big red button on the back._ _

__“Go ahead. Shock me.”_ _

__\------------------------------------------------------_ _

__

__There are fresh sheets on the bed and Grace is sleeping over at Grandma’s tonight._ _

__A scented candle is burning, infusing the air in the bedroom with a subtle drift of sandalwood._ _

__Alison’s lips are tickling Emily’s ear playfully, her teeth scraping lightly against her partner’s skin._ _

__She arches her body against Emily._ _

___Touch me._ _ _

__Emily doesn’t need to be told twice._ _

__She rolls on top of Alison, kisses her hard._ _

__Moves her hands downward._ _

__Alison gasps against her mouth._ _

__Emily slowly slides a single finger inside her._ _

__Ali is writhing on the mattress, her head thrown back against the pillow._ _

__The phone rings._ _

__It’s been seven months since anyone’s heard from Spencer._ _

__Mary Drake is worried._ _

__Worried enough to show up at Veronica’s office._ _

__To get escorted out by security._ _

__Alison stills Emily’s wrist with one hand._ _

__Reaches out to pick up the receiver with the other._ _

__\-----------------------------------------------_ _

__The thing about life is that it goes on._ _

__It’s relentless._ _

__The Sharks captain wins the State Finals in the 200m free._ _

__Smashes the last of Emily’s old records._ _

__Caleb goes to Europe to win Hanna back._ _

__He punches a photographer. Spends the night in jail on Mykonos._ _

__Hanna sends her assistant to bail him out._ _

__Grace starts preschool._ _

__Alison and Emily hold hands as they watch her run excitedly into the classroom._ _

__Spencer passes out in the doorway of Melissa’s old apartment in London._ _

__The landlord calls Wren Kingston._ _

__Byron gets sick._ _

__Aria doesn’t come back._ _

__Alison grows thin again, and tense._ _

__She uses concealer to hide the dark circles under her eyes._ _

__Hanna gets in a shouting match with Tyra Banks at the VMAs._ _

__Drops the F bomb during the live broadcast._ _

__There’s a boycott. A few chains stop carrying her designs._ _

__Spencer stays with Wren for three months._ _

__She leaves in the middle of the night._ _

__Takes his prescription pad and all the money in his wallet._ _

__Emily and Alison get married at the courthouse._ _

__Pam cries. Mona tosses a handful of rice._ _

__Alison tries not to think about her last wedding._ _

__Archer repeating after Aria._ _

__Spencer comes back to the States without telling anyone._ _

__She finds Liam in Boston._ _

__Asks him to find out where the book royalties go._ _

___Be the White Knight._ _ _

__He gives her the account number._ _

__Hanna’s rep denies there’s a sex tape._ _

__The video is posted on YouTube two days later._ _

__Emily teaches Grace to swim._ _

__The backstroke. The doggie paddle._ _

__Alison watches from her towel in the sand._ _

__Still gets a little flutter at the sight of Emily in her swimsuit._ _

__Spencer follows the money to a bank in the Cayman Islands._ _

__She calls Caleb. Begs him to hack the bank’s mainframe._ _

__Caleb calls Veronica._ _

__Veronica swoops in._ _

__Deposits Spencer in a high end rehab program._ _

__Hanna divorces Caleb._ _

__Emily reads about it in line at the grocery store._ _


	4. Last Call

Spencer comes home.

She did a month in rehab.

That’s how she describes it.

Like she was doing time.

“She’s better?” Emily asks, uncertainly.

She’s crouched over, tying Grace’s shoes.

She hasn’t seen Spencer yet.

She just got back this morning.

Alison picked her up from the airport.

She had vodka on her breath when she walked off the plane.

“She’s here,” Alison replies.

Emily used to bartend.

She’s seen her share of addicts.

Still thinks they look like other people.

Not like Spencer Hastings.

\-------------------------------------------------

Alison cleans up the vomit on the floor.

Spencer is on the couch. 

“Grace is taking ballet,” Alison tells her. “She’s so little, it’s mostly standing on your toes in a and twirling in a tutu. But it’s cute.” 

Spencer doesn’t answer.

Her eyes are open, but she’s hanging out on an alternate plane. A state somewhere between consciousness and actual sleep. 

She spends a lot of time there.

Alison gathers up the bottles and puts them in the recycle bin.

She looks at Spencer and sees the ghost of her mother’s face.

\--------------------------------------------------

Some days are better than others.

Alison is an expert at reading the signs.

If Spencer showered in the morning.

If there’s coffee in the pot.

If Mona’s there and MSNBC is on. 

Spencer scoffing at the screen, ranting about gerrymandering.

If Jason’s in town, dragging her to a meeting or two.

He knows the drill. Knows you have to hit bottom, have to find the will to change.

Even so, the first time he saw her like this, he heaved her bodily over his shoulder, carried her out to his car and drove them both to a church basement in Ravenswood.

He still has a small scar on his neck from where Spencer clawed him.

Now she goes with him willingly enough.

Sits quietly next to him. Wears clean khakis and a cardigan.

He’s the only one she bothers trying to fool.

Alison can make it through the bad days without faltering.

It’s the good days that trip her up. 

Make her cry as she’s making dinner. 

Tears splashing into the pots on the stove.

The days a whiteboard appears in the barn.

When Spencer starts looking for private investigators to hire.

When she fires one of them. Calls his rates usurious.

The days when it feels like if you squint hard enough, she could be the old Spencer.

That she’s still in there.

Buried alive.

\------------------------------------------------------------------

Hanna’s pregnant.

“Did you know?” Emily asks Mona over brunch.

“Of course,” Mona says. And Alison believes her, even though her smile is tight.

Like it’s stretched thin over whatever she’s actually feeling.

Alison cuts a piece of French toast into bite sized pieces for Grace.

They don’t ask who the father is.

\------------------------------------------------------------------

For years, Rosewood did it’s best to punish them.

Throw them in jail for everything and nothing.

Now, the town seems oddly willing to cradle Spencer.

Do its best to break her fall.

Spencer makes a scene in front of the bank.

Chases a blonde woman, tears the sleeve of her red wool coat.

No one calls the police. 

They call Alison to pick her up.

Spencer breaks into Mike Montgomery’s car.

Steals his cell phone.

Mona talks him out of pressing charges.

Spencer weaves between lanes at 3AM.

Blue and red lights flash in her rearview.

The cops don’t arrest her. 

They call Marco.

He tells them to give her a warning.

Asks them to drive her home.

All those years they failed to protect her.

Now the whole town seems willing to take her in.

To look after her.

All it took was for her to be humbled.

For Spencer Hastings to be cut down to size. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------

 

The worried pucker in Emily’s forehead is taking up permanent residence.

There are tire tracks on the lawn. 

Deep ruts from Spencer’s SUV, which they discovered flung up against the hedges this morning.

“There has to be something we can do,” her wife says, folding a basket of laundry. 

Alison watches Grace pour a cup of tea for one of her stuffed animals across the room.

“We could go over there and clear out all the liquor. Pour it down the drain. That would slow her down.”

“I already tried that. Three times. But it’s Spencer. She hides bottles so well, even I can’t find them.”

Emily frowns.

She can’t quite wrap her head around how bad things are.

She still expects the old Spencer to show up.

To emerge like a butterfly from its cocoon.

To show up in clean clothes.

To have a color coded plan of action.

“We should take her keys, at least.”

Alison sighs. Pulls Spencer’s car keys from the pocket of her dress.

“I’ve had them since she took out that parking meter on Main Street.”

“Then how -”

“She hotwired it. And she dismantled the stupid anti-theft club I ordered off QVC.”

Emily’s frown deepens. 

“There has to be something we can do.”

Emily thinks about addiction like it’s a hole Spencer’s fallen into.

That she’s retrievable with the right equipment.

Pulleys and ropes. Sturdy boots and muscle.

It’s one of the things Alison loves most about her.

Emily still believes in happy endings.

\----------------------------------------------------------------

Mary Drake gives them the deed to The Lost Woods Resort.

She wants Spencer to have a project.

Something to focus on.

“That’s a nice idea,” Alison tells her aunt.

Too bad it won’t work.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

 _Lucas Got-his-Marin! Billionaire Tech Mogul Weds Fashion Icon!_

“That’s a terrible headline,” Alison says, setting the magazine on the table.

There was a bidding war for the wedding pictures. 

Hanna’s belly baring gown caused an international sensation.

The press has been hounding her for months.

Weekly exposes in the Daily Mail claiming to reveal who the father is.

George Clooney. Prince Harry. Caleb Rivers.

“It really is,” Mona agrees. 

After she leaves, Alison tries to show Emily the article.

The magazine is gone.

Mona stuffed it in the trash.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------- 

“I understand,” Emily says, in an obnoxiously patient voice. “Grace doesn’t. She wanted you to be there.”

“You don’t think I wanted to be there?” Alison retorts.

Spencer was gone for a week. 

Missing. 

She spent hours driving around, scanning roadside ditches for any sign of her clothes.

Then Spencer called from the Minneapolis airport.

She went to Seattle to talk to Maggie Cutler.

Missed her connecting flight on the way back.

It left four days ago.

Four days that she’s spent on a barstool in one of the airport bars.

Alison missed Grace’s dance recital to fly out and collect her.

Jason always wants to fight about it.

Says she’s an enabler. 

“She’s family,” Alison insists.

She braces herself for Emily’s voice to go hard, like when Kenneth used to fight with Jessica. 

To snarl, “We’re your family,” and have that be the end of the discussion.

Emily comes over and sits next to her on the couch. 

Rests her head on Alison’s shoulder.

“I know, baby. She’s my family, too.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------

Spencer’s room at The Lost Woods is a mess.

Alison is sweeping up broken glass when she notices the pictures on the wall.

Age progression photos of Ezra and Aria.

“Where did you get these?”

“Browning did them for me. He’s good.”

One of the PIs she hired.

Alison studies the images. 

Traces Aria’s nose in profile with one of her fingertips.

She looks a little older. Not much. Darker lines around the eyes.

Alison looks at her own reflection in the mirror, at Spencer behind her.

They look weathered. Weary. Beaten up by the daily grind of living.

That’s when she sees the third picture, peeking out of a file folder on the desk.

She’d know those eyes anywhere.

_Grace._

She snatches the paper and waves it angrily.

“What the hell is this?”

Spencer is unphased.

“You know what it is. You know why I have it. Look at her -”

 _”No!_ ” 

Alison’s voice rings through the cramped space.

She tears up the picture of Grace at seventeen. 

Marches into the bathroom and flushes them down the toilet.

“You don’t go there. Do you understand me? Not now. Not ever!”

Spencer shrugs.

“A lead is a lead.”

“She is not a lead. She’s my daughter.”

Spencer doesn’t respond.

She’s staring at the picture of Aria. 

Alison’s foot knocks into a cereal bowl on the floor.

There’s a hardened skin of milk on the bottom. 

A few graying Cheerios frozen in place.

Alison grabs the bowl.

Throws it. Hard.

It smashes against the wall.

Six inches from Spencer’s head.

Spencer doesn’t flinch.

Ali musters her old voice, the Queen B tone of command.

“I hope you hear me.”

She moves closer, till her nose is almost touching Spencer’s.

She doesn’t yell. Her voice is a low hiss of fury.

“I will let you die in the gutter before I let you bring her into this.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

Five years, four months, twenty-seven days.

That’s how long it was last time.

The space between.

It’s been five years.

Four months.

Today is day twenty-eight.

The other shoe never drops.

Alison gives a pop quiz on _The Crucible_.

Emily approves three new lifeguard certifications.

They order pizza for dinner.

Play a few hands of “Go Fish” with Grace.

It’s just a normal day.

\----------------------------------------------------------

The Lost Woods isn’t exactly thriving.

Still, they pull in a few guests now and then.

Tourists who’ve wandered too far off the highway.

Truckers looking for a cheap bed and a shower.

Down market adulterers.

They sell out a few nights in May.

When the Radley is fully booked.

Hanna and Lucas are in town.

They rent out the entire hotel, the whole premises.

For two months.

For Hanna, per the tabloids, is suffering from “exhaustion.”

“Well,” Alison says to Emily. “Aren’t we all.”

They visit a few times. 

Emily coos over baby Luc.

Lucas keeps putting his arm around Hanna’s shoulders.

Touching her knee, like he wants to make sure she’s real.

Hanna smiles for him like she smiles for the cameras.

A pose.

He can’t tell the difference.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------

Spencer doesn’t visit.

Hanna goes to her.

Pounds on the door to Spencer’s room.

Keeps pounding until her hand starts to bleed.

Spencer doesn’t answer.

A flashbulb goes off nearby.

Hanna turns on the photographer, rips the camera out of his hands.

She tosses it on the ground.

Pulls out the memory card and crushes it under her heel.

Someone sells a cell phone video of the whole incident to Extra.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------

Lucas is rigging up a projector in the bar area.

A first time viewing of Star Wars for his four month old son.

He invites them to bring Grace over.

He likes to make Hanna happy.

Her friends make her happy.

Therefore, he likes her friends.

And he likes showing off.

His money. His gorgeous wife. 

Alison understands he’s trying to prove something.

She leaves Emily and Grace munching popcorn with him.

Sets off in search of Hanna.

Finds her coming out of an East Wing guest room.

She and Mona are giggling, their fingers interlaced.

Hanna straightens up. 

Drops Mona’s hand guiltily.

The door to the room hasn’t quite closed.

Rumpled bedsheets are visible over their shoulders.

“We were working on some new designs,” Hanna says.

Alison quirks an eyebrow, gives her the lie.

“I can’t wait to see them.”

_Our secrets keep us close._

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The call comes in the middle of the night.

_“Something’s wrong.”_

Jason’s voice on the other end of the line.

_“I need you to go check on Spencer.”_

He’s in Burkina Faso, halfway around the world.

_“Now.”_

She left him a voicemail.

_“Ja-son. Jayson.”_

Twenty minutes ago.

_“I thought I knew.”_

Alison dials 911 as she runs down the stairs.

_“I didn’t.”_

She’s in the car, racing towards The Lost Woods.

_“I didn’t know.”_

Alison doesn’t believe in God.

_“I didn’t know anything.”_

 

But she’s praying as hard as she can.

_“Except we’re the same.”_

There’s an ambulance in the parking lot.

_“We’re the same.”_

The paramedics are already in the room.

_“You were in love with her once, too.”_

Spencer is on the floor. Her eyes are glassy.

_“Tell Ali it wasn’t her fault, okay?”_

She’s not moving. Not breathing.

_“Tell them.”_

Alison feels her own heart stop.

_“I’m sorry.”_

The medics are kneeling over Spencer. 

Their movements are urgent, frantic.

They might be shouting.

Alison can’t hear them.

It’s like someone clicked the sound off.

But the picture is in stark relief.

The filthy carpet.

The television still on. 

A black and white movie shaded red from the flashing lights.

Cary Grant climbs an ominously lit staircase with a glass of milk on a tray.

The medic’s jacket is so blue.

She’s plunging a syringe into Spencer’s shoulder.

The backboard they’re heaving her onto is yellow.

Her arm hangs down.

Deadweight.

A file folder slips from her hand.

Its contents cascade across the floor.

Spencer’s being wheeled out on a gurney.

Emily appears. Her face is streaked with tears. 

Her arm is warm around Alison’s shoulder.

Her anchor.

They should do something.

Follow the ambulance.

Call Veronica.

Alison starts straightening up the room.

She picks up the scattered papers in a daze.

Spencer must have been reading them.

She forces her eyes to focus on the words.

Commitment papers.

She feels the bile rise in the back of her throat.

_Aria wasn’t in Iceland for sophomore year._

_She was in Radley._


	5. Tabula Rasa

Spencer Hastings examines her reflection in the mirror.

Her cream colored silk blouse is freshly pressed.

Her skirt grazes the tops of her knees.

Her hair is straightened and newly cut.

She looks like Melissa.

Upstanding.

Uptight.

Perfect.

\----------------------------------------------------------------

“You seem so much better,” Emily tells her.

There’s so much relief in her voice.

It hisses out like steam around a pressure valve.

“I almost died, Em,” Spencer replies, sipping her coffee. “It’d be hard to be worse.”

Emily smiles, looks a little embarrassed. 

“Well,” she says, “I missed you.”

Spencer smiles back.

They sit in silence as they watch Grace running around the yard.

“Do you still think it was him?”

“I don’t think about it anymore,” Spencer lies.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------

She goes to meetings every day.

Sometimes she shares.

Sometimes she does a crossword puzzle.

It’s relaxing.

A finite universe full of clues.

Where solutions exist.

Link up. 

Build one upon the other.

22 Across. _Fifteenth Book of the Old Testament._

35 Down. _A-Tisket, A-Tasket Singer._

41 Across. _The Heart _____ Lonely Hunter. 2wds._

56 Down. _Song in Variable Key_

63 Across. _Vissi d’arte._

78 Down. _Placido Domingo solo_

Spencer knows all the answers.

\---------------------------------------------------------

Spencer is poring over a blueprint.

She’s overseeing the renovation of The Lost Woods. 

A banner hangs underneath the neon sign.

Closed While We Restore Our Former Glory.

“I’m not sure it ever had any glory,” Alison comments.

They spend the afternoon going over fabric samples for the bedspreads. 

Discussing the possibility of putting in a pool.

Spencer shows her the vintage Coke machine she’s ordering.

Alison snorts. “No one has nickels anymore.”

“So we’ll keep a little stack of them next to the machine. It’s part of the charm. The je ne sais quoi.”

Alison smiles. 

The kind of smile that has _you seem like your old self_ stuck in its teeth.

Spencer smiles back.

Tries not to feel like she’s about to jump out of her skin.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The dinner party is in full swing downstairs.

Spencer can hear the rise and fall of conversation.

The silverware clanking against the plates as Alison clears away the first course.

She moves quietly towards Grace’s room.

Her hairbrush is on the dresser.

Spencer reaches for it.

The courage to change the things you can.

“Spencer?” Mona’s voice from the doorway is politely distrustful.

An echo of the exact tone Spencer used to use with her.

Spencer pulls back, empty-handed.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spencer rarely sleeps.

Her brain makes a hundred cases every night.

She pitches them to invisible juries.

He made her do it.

Aria is tearful and contrite, Ezra brutal and unrepentant.

Or -

He tricked her.

Ezra is a charming sociopath and Aria pleads Stockholm syndrome.

Or - 

She went along for the ride.

Aria is a gangster’s moll and Ezra’s a fast talking mobster.

Or -

He’s sick.

Ezra is a pedophile and Aria’s his victim.

Or - 

He took advantage.

She was vulnerable. Mentally unstable. He’s a master manipulator.

Or - 

Beauty and the BeAst.

He’s a monster and she’s his wife.

Or -

Hostage situation.

He’s a kidnapper. She’s locked in a tower.

Or - 

Suzy Clueless.

He’s a criminal. She has no idea.

Or. Or. Or.

A is for Aria.

Ezra is a patsy. 

Aria planned the whole thing.

The equation is reversible.

_There might never be an answer._

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

She’s planning a trip to Chicago.

She shows Alison pictures of colorful mod leather sofas.

Barrel chairs. 

“We’ll get a better deal if I go in person. Do a little factory tour.”

“Flash those Hastings legs,” Ali smirks. 

Spencer puts in the furniture order online.

She lands and drives to Hartgrove State Mental Institution.

Signs in as Dr. Anne Sullivan.

Asks for a visit with Meredith Sorenson.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You’re looking well,” Melissa says, as they split up a Greek Salad.

“So are you. How’s the Senator?”

“Doddering. He went to a reception at the Swiss Embassy last week and came back with his pockets stuffed full of mashed potatoes.”

“No!”

“They don’t want to lose his seat on the Intelligence Committee. It’s the only reason the DNC hasn’t put him out to pasture.”

Spencer spears a tomato with her fork, chews thoughtfully.

“The Hill was floating a rumor that Mom’s at the top of the list of possible replacements.”

“Don’t believe everything you read.”

“Mmm,” Spencer agrees. “She’d have to watch that train wreck daughter.”

Melissa laughs. “A redemption narrative, on the other hand, can be an asset. You could inspire the masses.”

Spencer wrinkles her nose. “I’ve been thinking of getting back into the game. But I’d have to start small.”

Melissa nods, picking at a piece of feta. “Something grassroots progressive. Maybe a ballot initiative. Or a district we’re looking to flip. Michigan or Georgia.”

“Keep an ear out for me?”

“Of course,” Melissa beams. “I’ll make some calls.”

She signals the waiter for the check, then excuses herself to use the restroom. 

Spencer takes the ID badge she unclipped from her sister’s blazer and runs it through a modified swipe square reader.

She clones the magnetic strip and tosses the badge into Melissa’s purse.

Her sister slides back into her seat.

She studies Spencer’s face carefully, shaking her head.

“You seem so much better.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Ali wants to go to New York for Fashion Week.

Hanna’s new line is called _Separation._

Tagline: It all comes undone.

She’s taking her splashy divorce from Lucas and turning it into a marketing strategy.

One of the dresses is a black and white print composed entirely of tabloid headlines.

The accusations of infidelity. The custody battle Lucas won.

Spencer volunteers to babysit for the weekend.

She packs a bag. Puzzles. Board games. DNA testing kit.

She arrives to find Emily and Ali already on the road.

Mona sitting on the couch showing Grace how to apply nail wraps.

“What are you doing here?” Spencer says, frowning.

“Babysitting.”

“I’m watching Grace this weekend.”

“Not her,” Mona says, rolling her eyes. “You.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

She still sees Aria everywhere.

In the crowd at the new Monet exhibit.

The produce section of Trader Joe’s.

Paging through Dashiell Hammett at the bookstore. 

Hope is a thing with feathers.

An ugly hat. A torn pillow. 

A buzzard eating roadkill, blood dripping from its beak.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spencer doesn’t sleep.

She paces.

Fifteen steps to cross the room.

_I can explain._

Turn.

_I’m done. I’m so done._

Fifteen steps back.

Her feet are wearing a groove into the floorboards.

But her mind is back in the woods.

Aria in front of her.

_I can explain._

The last moment.

Or maybe it was already too late.

Every night, Spencer goes back into the woods.

Changes the ending.

She listens.

Fifteen steps across.

She grabs Aria, bundles her into the car.

Turn.

She pulls a mask off Aria’s face to find Ezra underneath.

Fifteen steps back.

Every night she does something different.

Smarter. Better.

Breaks the case when it would have mattered.

Every night she solves it.

She saves Aria.

Saves them all.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spencer is on a step ladder, helping Emily strip the wallpaper in the guest bathroom.

Alison’s house always smells like there’s a pie in the oven.

Baking. The kind of hobby regular people have.

“What are they making today?” Spencer asks, running the scoring tool across a swath in the corner.

“French bread. They started the dough last night.”

Spencer can hear Alison’s laughter drifting up through the vents. It mixes with Grace’s, like flour and sugar in a bowl. 

She runs the flat end of the scraper hard against the faded floral print.

“I have to tell you something important.”

Emily looks at her questioningly.

“Aria can’t have children. It was in her medical file from Radley.”

Spencer digs the tool into the wall so hard she cracks the plaster.

Emily’s shoulders tense up.

“He’s going to come back someday.”

A long stretch of wallpaper peels off.

Coils at their feet like a snake.

“He’s going to come back for Grace.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Spencer is wearing headphones and crouching in the back of a black surveillance van.

She has a telephoto lens pointed at the front window of the Montgomery house.

Byron Montgomery is wasting away.

So thin that his bones are visible. 

His skin is papery. So waxy it’s almost translucent.

Spencer pulls out a burner phone.

Bounces the signal off fourteen proxy servers.

Her heart is hammering.

Greenland. China. Malaysia. Turkey.

She feels the whoosh of adrenaline. 

Five satellites.

Ella is reading at Byron’s bedside.

Both of their phones chime simultaneously.

_I’m still here, bitches. And I know everything. -A_

Ella responds seconds later.

_Aria, is that you?_

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes she has flash dreams.

Reels of her subconscious unspool in the space of a long blink.

Aria and Ezra in a black and white movie.

Hanna’s pink dress the only shock of color.

Meredith narrates.

_That little bitch blackmailed us._

_She found out about the affair._

_She threatened us._

_Sent crazy text messages._

_Trashed his office and made it look like I did it._

_Drained the brake fluid from his car._

Aria is wearing the harlequin mask and a candy striper uniform.

Standing at the foot of Spencer’s hospital bed.

“Oh honey,” she says. “You didn’t even know me when you knew me.”

“Are you okay?” Grace asks. The concerned look on her face is pure Emily.

“Of course,” Spencer says brightly. 

She shakes some sprinkles onto her froyo.

Sits at the table with Grace and Emily.

It’s real, but it feels fake.

A shadow play.

She picks their trash up off the table.

Palms Grace’s spoon.

A rogue toddler careens into her from behind.

_The serenity to accept the things I can not change._

The spoon clatters to the floor.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What’s wrong with you?” Alison asks.

Something’s off.

“Nothing,” Spencer shrugs. “I thought we were going to the Farmer’s Market.”

“What are you wearing?”

There’s a bite in her voice that Spencer can’t quite place.

“What?”

Spencer looks down at her outfit, confused.

“Can you take it off, please?” Alison asks.

_Fear._

Spencer realizes what the problem is.

“It must be the lighting.” 

She unzips her sweatshirt.

Crumples the black hoodie into a ball.

“The tag said Navy Blue.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

There’s a knock on the door.

It’s 2AM.

Spencer peers through the peephole.

Mona knocks again, the faux fur collar of her vest ruffling in the breeze.

“I’m only knocking to be polite,” she declares. 

“In twenty seconds, I’m picking the lock.”

Spencer opens the door with a sardonic smile.

“I’m flattered. I thought you preferred blondes for your clandestine assignations.”

Mona doesn’t rise to take the bait. 

She walks in, casting a sharp eye around the room.

“What do you want, Mona?

“I want you to get help. Go back to rehab.”

“Maybe you missed the memo,” Spencer says, her voice crackling. “I’m better now.”

“Cut the crap. Do you really think I don’t know what’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on.”

“Don’t lie to me. It’s insulting.”

Mona sits down on the bed and sighs.

“What’s your endgame?”

“My endgame?”

“Say you prove she’s Ezra’s daughter. You unleash a storm of chaos into their lives. For what?”

A court order for child support. A subpoena to respond. A bench warrant to appear.

“I’m not interested in proving anything.”

“What if it works? What if you manage to get him here? What then? We still don’t have any proof that he was A.”

Then he’d be standing right in front of them. In the smug faced flesh.

And flesh is vulnerable. 

Bullets. Acid. Hunting knives.

Ropes in the bell tower.

A blow to the back of the head.

A quick shove under the wheels of a train.

There are a thousand ways to die.

Especially in Rosewood.

And once you die, that’s it.

Game over.

“I told you. I’m not interested in proving anything. Not anymore.”

“You haven’t thought this through.”

“I’m focusing on my recovery.”

“Really? If I kissed you right now, I wouldn’t taste vodka on your tongue?”

Spencer folds her arms across her chest. Gives Mona an appraising look.

“If that’s what you want - ”

“It’s not,” Mona says, her voice dropping down an octave. “I want you to hear me. Your friends see what they want to see. Spencer Hastings triumphing bravely over her demons. All those years when you were going method for your _Leaving Las Vegas_ audition? I spent keeping this whole shipwreck afloat!”

Spencer’s hand twitches. 

She takes a deep breath.

“Maybe I was wrong,” she says, slowly. “Maybe they went on the run to escape A. Then A stopped the game to make them look guilty. Nature abhors a vacuum. Aria was gone. You swooped in and took her place. Isn’t it funny the way that worked out?”

“Your threats are charmingly out of date,” Mona says, smiling like she’s running for Homecoming Court. “Caleb tried that one years ago.”

She stands up and pats Spencer’s shoulder. “I’m a white hat now. And you’re not fooling me.”

Mona stops with her hand on the door knob. When she turns back, her face is softer.

Her voice sounds weary.

“You think you can control it. You can’t. It controls you.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Think about what I said, okay? You need help.”

Spencer fights down a smirk. “I seem better. Everyone says so.”

Mona shakes her head sadly.

“You remembered how to seem.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spencer pulls back the curtain and watches Mona drive away.

Then she walks over to the closet.

She tugs the third hook, twists it to the right.

Her bed springs upward, folding into the wall.

The trap door slides open.

She climbs the metal ladder down.

Pictures cover every inch of the wall. 

Aria’s ear. Ezra’s eyes. Grace on Santa’s lap from the DiLaurentis Fields Christmas card.

She presses a button on the computer console and sets the room upstairs to rights.

She looks at the bank of monitors in front of her and feels herself relax.

Ali and Emily are reading in bed. 

Grace is sleeping peacefully in her room.

She types a few keystrokes, checks that their alarm system is on.

Ella is drinking a glass of wine, alone in her kitchen.

The GPS on Mona’s car shows her heading back to her apartment.

She’s calling Hanna. Of course she is.

Spencer adjusts a dial and starts listening in.

Their voices rise and fall. 

The rhythms of their conversation are soothing. 

The beats of affection and trust as comforting as a lulabye.

Spencer starts typing. 

Uses Melissa’s security clearance to gain remote access to the DHS system.

Starts searching through passport records.

She pours herself a vodka soda and leans back in her chair.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spencer sits at the bar in a red wig and a tight black shirt.

“You’ve been watching me all night.” 

He’s wiry. Dressed in a pale green polo shirt and loafers. He has a scruffy goatee.

Spencer stirs her drink. 

Her face is painted like a mask.

“Maybe I have.”

He grins. He’s flattered.

She give him the big eyes.

“Buy you a drink, Sailor?”

“Who are you?” he asks, as she pushes a glass towards him.

“Vivian Darkbloom,” she says, holding out her hand. 

“Do I know you?”

She slides a finger slowly down his chest.

“No. But you will.”

He fumbles with the keys at the door to his townhouse.

His eyes are already bleary. Unfocused.

“Let’s get you into bed,” Spencer says, her voice low and seductive.

She has to help him up the stairs.

He’s woozy. Weaving.

Wesley Fitzgerald collapses on the bed. 

Out cold.

Spencer gets to work.

Copies every file on his computer.

Plants cameras in the air vents, listening devices in the lamps.

Clones his cell phone.

Goes through his sock drawer.

His pantry.

His pockets.

She opens his mouth as he snores.

Swabs the inside of his cheek and saves the sample.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

She doesn’t have much time.

Both specimens need to be fresh.

She disables Ali’s alarm system.

Jimmies the back door.

She slips inside quietly.

She moves like a ghost.

Waltzing over to the fireplace.

She notches the gas line.

Just enough for a slow leak.

Everyone is already asleep.

She’s just making sure they’ll stay that way.

She waits on the porch for twenty minutes.

Does a few quick lines to help keep her focused.

She goes back in and climbs the stairs.

Grace is drooling a little on her pillow.

Spencer moves towards her.

Like taking candy from a baby.

She has the test tube ready.

She’s three steps from the bed when someone cold cocks her from behind.

She crumples to the floor.

Rolls over and sees Mona looming above her.

“Do you ever wonder when you became the very thing you were afraid of?”

Mona hits her again, and everything goes black.


	6. The Final Problem

The room isn’t much to look at. 

Pale peach walls. White curtains.

A chair with scratchy floral print upholstery.

Hanna’s been here for three weeks.

Sitting next to Spencer’s bed, watching her eyelids flutter. 

She’s not in restraints, even though she stabbed one of the orderlies with his pen last week.

Hanna paid him off.

Spencer’s already pretty out of it.

She mumbles wild theories in her sleep.

She claims she has an evil twin.

She thinks Charlotte is alive.

She confesses to killing Ali.

She calls out for Aria.

Hanna holds her hand.

And waits.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spencer makes it through detox.

The first thing she sees when she comes to is Hanna.

Holding out a cup of water with a straw.

The second thing is also Hanna.

Holding an Ipad displaying a camera feed of Grace’s bedroom.

Spencer shakes her head.

It’s not one of hers.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mona traces the signal to a cabin in the mountains southwest of Akureyri.

It’s a five hour flight.

They take Hanna’s plane.

Emily isn’t speaking to Spencer.

“What happened to never giving up on people?” Hanna asks, handing her a bubbly water.

Emily follows her gaze to where Alison is sitting.

“That was then. This is now.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------

They stand together at the base of the mountain.

Spencer is oddly still.

“Let’s go,” Mona says. 

“I need to know how it ends.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

It takes them an hour and a half to climb up to the cabin.

The path is winding, strewn with jagged rocks.

Spencer falls.

Emily wordlessly helps her up.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The cabin has Board Shorts Ale in the fridge.

A half eaten pie on the kitchen counter.

A jewelry box full of dangly earrings.

An entire wall of monitors.

Live feeds of every security camera in Rosewood.

They watch in silence.

Grace’s bedroom is empty.

She and Pam are at The Radley.

There are cameras there, too.

The lobby.

The bar.

The hallways.

A bellhop is shuffling along slowly.

Pushing a room service cart.

Emily’s fingernails dig into Hanna’s arm.

It occurs her how slow, how incredibly, unforgivably slow they’ve all been.

The bellhop stops and looks directly at the camera.

Rips off his mask.

Ezra Fitz stares right into their eyes.

The corners of his mouth quirk up.

He smiles.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s dark as they rush back down the mountain.

Alison is near collapse.

Spencer and Emily practically carry her back to the car.

They’ve tried calling The Radley. 

Ashley. Pam. The police. 

Spencer tries Aria’s old number.

No one answers.

Once they’re on the plane, they huddle together.

Like a pile of puppies.

Mona clasps Hanna’s hand tightly. 

Just like old times.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------

They land in a field outside of town.

Spencer hotwires a car.

Treats the traffic lights and stop signs as mere suggestions.

They race down the hall to Pam’s room.

Burst through the door.

Pam looks up from her knitting.

Grace is there.

Alison faints.

Grace is sitting cross legged on the floor.

Emily rushes to her daughter.

Grace is playing with a doll.

“Where did you get that, honey?”

A doll with a pink streak in it’s hair.

“It’s a present.”

Mona takes it gently from Grace’s hands.

“Where did it come from?”

The hair detaches.

“It came in a box,” Pam says.

There’s a hollow at the base of the neck.

“The bellhop brought it.”

There’s a note inside.

In Aria’s handwriting.

A single word.

_HELP_

\------------------------------------------------------------------

Pam doesn’t waste time being furious.

Once Emily tells her the whole story she nods grimly.

Gets Wayne’s gun out of the storage locker.

She makes a call to an old Army friend.

Announces she wants to show her grand daughter off at Fort Bragg.

Spencer asks Marco for a favor.

He gives Pam and Grace a police escort. 

Lights and sirens.

The illusion of safety.

They stop for gas on the back roads of Virginia.

Grace gets out to use the restroom.

“Be careful, honey.”

“I will.”

A semi pulls up to the pump next to them.

The trailer is huge.

Big enough to block the view of the security camera.

“Your back tire is low,” the driver says.

“Thank you,” Pam responds.

Ashley Marin, wearing a brown wig, emerges from the back of the police car.

Pam and Grace slide into the back of the truck’s cab.

Mary Drake pulls a baseball cap down over her eyes.

Ashley drives Pam’s car the rest of the way.

With a life sized Grace doll snuggled under a blanket in the back seat.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They piece together a trail.

Hanna uses advanced facial recognition software.

A Lucas Corp prototype.

You don’t need a full face shot. 

It can match ears. 

They flew into JFK.

On a flight from London.

Mona hacks into the passenger lists.

They’re traveling Scott and Zelda Sayre.

Spencer flags the passports.

_Suspected terrorist. Please detain._

TSA picks them up in Boston.

They escape custody.

There’s footage of them walking past the ticket counter.

Aria struggling a little against the tight grasp of Ezra’s arm.

The snarl of his face when she resists.

Spencer watches it over and over.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hanna hands Spencer a thick binder.

“This is everything we’ve got,” Mona says.

Spencer flips it open.

Lists of aliases. 

Maps of Europe with red circles and dates.

Addresses of possible lairs.

Emily looks confused.

Alison doesn’t.

“How long have you been looking?”

Hanna meets Spencer’s eyes.

“Seven years.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spencer and Mona run a cyber slash and burn.

Destroying the false identities.

Deactivating credit cards.

Switching the deeds on the properties.

_If your quarry goes to ground, leave no ground to go to._

\------------------------------------------------------------------------

He needs cash.

He calls Wesley.

Spencer still has the line tapped.

They arrange to meet at the Reading Terminal Market.

Alison spots Ezra carrying a blue duffel bag.

She signals Hanna as he melts into the crowd.

They follow, pushing shoppers out of the way, trying to get close.

Spencer is getting into position to intercept.

Mona is moving in to cut off his escape route toward the main entrance.

Emily is watching from the stairs.

Or she should be.

Alison’s heart drops. 

Emily’s not in position.

Alison can make out the shape of her shoulder, the flip of her dark hair.

She’s dodging through the crowd, weaving hurriedly towards a stand selling fig jam.

A stylish woman with a white blonde pixie cut is examining one of the glass jars.

Emily touches her shoulder.

She turns.

_Aria._

Alison shoves an elderly couple out of her way, cuts through a green juice stand.

From the corner of her eye, she sees Hanna hurdling over a baby stroller.

It looks like Emily and Aria are either hugging or tussling, their arms on each others shoulders.

Tussling.

Aria jams an elbow into Emily’s bad shoulder.

She breaks away.

“Aria!” Emily calls after her.

“Aria!” Spencer cries, breaking out of formation.

“Aria!” The man with the duffel bag shouts.

The voice is wrong.

It’s not Ezra.

Mona swoops in front of him and knocks him down, hard.

His mask slips.

The duffel bag goes flying.

Hundred dollar bills rain down on the crowd.

It’s pandemonium.

A mob scene.

Wesley is nearly trampled to death.

Aria vanishes. 

Again.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------

“She said he’d kill her,” Emily says, her voice shaking.

They’re driving back to Rosewood.

It’s raining.

The kind of storm that makes it dark in the middle of the day.

The landscape is a dark outline.

Looming on the other side of the windows.

“Do you think it’s possible?” Spencer asks. “That she didn’t know?”

There’s silence.

The sound of the tires bumping along the highway.

“No,” Alison answers.

“Yes,” Emily says. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A guest at the Lost Woods reports their car stolen.

The plates of another sedan have been swapped out.

Alison goes room to room to tell guests to check their vehicles.

Room 5 is supposed to be unoccupied.

The door is hanging open.

There’s a zebra print scarf tied to the headboard.

A postcard of the Philadelphia skyline on the desk.

A red scrawl on the back.

_Did you miss me?_

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hanna gets a call.

Someone hacked her brand’s twitter feed.

Posted a series of X-rated pictures of her and Mona.

Mona thinks it’s great news.

Their relationship is finally out in the open.

And she can trace the hack.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I don’t like this,” Spencer says. “It’s too easy.”

“Easy?” Emily says in disbelief. “We’ve chased them across nine different states!”

“She’s right,” Mona agrees. “He knows we’re after him.”

“So why leave us the trail of breadcrumbs,” Alison muses.

“Because he’s getting off on it,” Spencer suggests. “Playing with us. Keeping himself a step ahead.”

“Or,” Hanna says. “He’s leading us into a trap.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The trail leads to Alison’s grandmother’s old house.

“I had $5,000 stashed here,” she announces, looking at the missing floorboards.

“That’s enough for him to get new passports,” Spencer frowns.

“Except I came back for it last year.”

She shrugs. “ We needed new storm windows.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The bank calls Spencer.

Someone tried to hack into her trust fund.

The old one.

From before Veronica designated Melissa as her sister’s keeper.

Transferred everything into her name.

“He’s getting desperate,” Hanna observes.

“Good,” Emily says.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

They’re driving through the night.

Hanna is snoring on Emily’s shoulder in the backseat.

Spencer has a map spread open on the dashboard.

Mona is driving.

“It was her dad,” Mona says, out of nowhere.

“Sorry?”

“He put her in Radley. He told Ella she’d been acting out. Then when Alison disappeared, he made it seem like she might have had something to do with it. He was afraid she was going to spill the beans about his affair.”

“How long have you known?”

“Since Mike told me. Years ago. It’s part of why he was so reluctant to get help.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“It matters. Whatever she knew or didn’t know, whatever he convinced her to be part of later - I have no idea. But she really did love you. And she really was your friend.”

Spencer closes her eyes.

She sleeps for six hours.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No one can run forever.

They catch up to them.

At a motel just outside of Buffalo.

A place so crappy it makes the Lost Woods look like a five star resort.

The desk clerk is chatty.

“Just you folks and a couple of newlyweds tonight.”

“I bet this is a great place for a honeymoon,” Spencer prompts.

“Sure is. They headed straight out to see the Falls.”

It’s dark, but the moon is full and the American Falls are brightly lit.

It’s nearly deserted.

The crowds are all on the Canadian side.

Nothing here but the sound of roaring water and a foggy mist.

And angry voices, echoing through the night.

“There,” Hanna points.

Ezra and Aria are on the red wooden Cave of the Winds platforms.

They’re not having a romantic stroll.

His hands are wrapped around her throat.

Spencer and Emily are already scrambling through the brush to get to the stairs, Alison and Hanna right behind them.

Aria knees him and breaks away. 

He’s blocking her way down.

She runs up, towards the higher viewing points.

Spencer is leaping over the railing. Emily is charging up the stairs.

Alison is panting, clutching the stitch in her side. 

She waves Hanna on as she dials 911.

Spencer and Emily are sprinting across the winding ramp.

Aria’s at the top of the Hurricane Deck.

You can’t run forever.

There’s nowhere left to go.

They’re backlit against the Falls.

Ezra’s huge shadow moves ominously closer to where Aria’s smaller one is cowering in the furthest corner.

He reaches out his hand.

He kisses her.

She struggles against him.

There are flashing lights.

Park rangers. 

Police.

Spencer and Emily are at the base of the final staircase.

Hanna’s ditched her shoes and is running barefoot behind them.

They’ll never make it in time.

A new shadow appears on the platform.

_Mona._

She must have clawed her way straight up the rock face.

There’s a flash. 

Spencer hears the gunshot as she bounds up the last few stairs.

Just in time to see Ezra’s body fall over the railing.

Emily joins her on the platform in time to catch the end of his trailing scream.

“It was him,” Aria says weakly, falling against Spencer. “Ezra was A.”

One of the rangers is climbing the stairs. 

The other heads down to the base of the falls to try and recover the body.

“What happened here?”

Spencer clutches Aria tightly, kicks the gun off the platform with the back of her boot.

“My husband,” Aria says, a tremor in her voice.

Emily looks at his uniform. The gold buttons. The badge.

The lie comes to her fully formed. 

Reflexive. Like muscle memory.

“He was taking a selfie,” Emily interjects. “He leaned too far over the side.”

“It was wet near the edge.” Spencer adds.

“A slippery slope,” Mona comments.

The ranger shakes his head, makes a note in his book.

“It happens,” he says. “S’why you’re not supposed to be up on these parts after dark.”

“We didn’t know, Officer,” Hanna says, putting a hand on his arm. “And this has all been a terrible shock.”

“Of course,” he says, as she straightens his jacket. “And you all saw what happened?”

“We did,” Spencer assures him. The others nod.

All for one. One for all.

“Well, let’s get you ladies out of here. I’ll write up your initial statements tonight. We can follow up tomorrow if we have any questions.”

Tomorrow they’ll be back in Rosewood.

Together.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They’re back in Spencer’s barn.

Emily is brewing Aria a mug of weak tea. 

Spencer is rubbing her back.

Offering her Saltines.

As if being married to a monster is something you can get over like a bad flu.

She says she had no idea. Not until the very end.

It’s so easy to believe.

To dress it up in fancy clothes and call it a happy ending.

Aria’s back.

_And she’s still the best liar._


End file.
